The War to End All Wars

The Christian fundamentalists are right about a cultural war being waged in our society, but this war isn't recent. Its been going on for well over 3000 years, probably much longer; sometimes cold, sometimes hot. They look for an apocalyptical finish very soon and are heating up the battle lines. But could it be that they are wrong, that their religion has become so corrupted that they are the enemies of humanity? That they should be on the losing side in the war against evil? Their philosophy of human dominion over the earth and multiplying to fill it threatens the survival of the human specie. Our Western Culture that this philosophy has created is driven and out of balance. It lacks controls. We do not honor the land or have respect for Mother Earth, and in turn have little respect for human life.

The religious foundation of Western Culture that focused on the importance of an afterlife and that views the spirit as more important than the body cannot focus rationally here and now. A seemingly contradictory reason why we became such rabid materialists. Native Americans understand this dilemma well. They have repeatedly warned us about our abuse of the land and of its dire consequences - a sickness of our collective spirit. We Westerners are conquerers, despoilers, rapers and users. We tried to exterminate the Native Americans and any peoples not like us. Our desire for material wealth seems to know no bounds. And our disrespect for those unlike us demonstrates our insecurity and incompassion. It is perhaps because of religiously inspired social intolerance, repression and conditional love that we always desire more material wealth and social power to make up for what we really need. It is not only western culture that has these faults. Other societies of the past have also been exploiters, but not every one, so this viewpoint is not an inherent human trait. Now the world is primarily western in outlook.

Whether Christian or not, each one of us suffers the consequences of this belief system. We have been acculturated with a concept of moral wholesomeness and righteousness that excludes half of life. Western fundamentalism teaches fear and hatred of the body and its pleasures. It wars with Nature and exploits the material world. It fears and hates differences. It teaches that other religions are wrong and evil. It will force compliance or eliminate differences as its sacred mission. This is a war mentality, an us vs. them view of life that is negative and thus repressive. It kills, literally. No matter what form or content of belief it manifests it wants an authoritarian control over minds and lives. It inculcates a needless guilt in childrens' minds by a restrictive and inflexible belief system limiting their openness to knowledge and fostering low self-esteem. This lack of esteem must be made up by faith in God and putting ones life in His hands and in the body of the church. One lives for God, or the congregation, not for oneself. But we should ask which God? What kind of a God wants this restriction of freedom? Is this not a flawed and limited human concept rather than a divine one?

Many Christian, Islamic and Jewish fundamentalists rage against what they perceive to be immorality, most of it having to do with sexuality - out of wedlock, pornography, homosexuality, and the pleasures of the body, but why do they rage? Are they afraid of these things because they are a danger to society or because they can't personally handle them? Other than Sexually Transmitted Diseases, they are unable to prove that a responsible, free sexuality is harmful. Do they envy those who freely indulge in pleasures and want to stiffle these pleasures denied them? And why should they be afraid of bodily pleasures? Why are they considered sinful? Are they really afraid of God's or Satan's punishment? But why should a god be feared? Or is it the body or something within themselves they fear? Something is very wrong here. It must be that they fear a lack of self-regulation. They have never wanted to accept the animal body as a natural and good thing in itself. Their philosophy to split the spirit from body, exalt it, but despise the body is a terrible thing with negative consequences affecting both mind and body. This is irrational. Perhaps it is an emotional dysfunction or a mass mental aberation. Whatever it is, it is not sane. How could a religion that professes love and forgiveness promote hatred and irrationality and restrict pleasure? Or when many fundamentalists and other extremist conservatives rage against imaginary conspiracies, such as the Trilateral Commission, international Jewish bankers or progress toward a peaceful One-world government shouldn't we question if these are the ravings of warped minds afraid of their own shadows? This irrational hatred and bigotry must be called a clear and present evil. But for evil to be effective it must pretend to be the good, and that is the horror of the current fundamentalist resurgence.

Despite the religious admonitions of generosity, charity, forgiveness and compassion, fundamentalists, in contradiction to Christ's teachings, also promote a rampant capitalism and consumerism that results in exploitation of the earth. Technological progress and gain of material wealth appear sacred to them. They also promote undemocratic practices in our society and authoritarian regimes in others if those serve our nation. Nationalism has become a sacred doctrine. They fear loss of sovereignty. It is separatist, elitist and intolerant - another example of their fear of differences.

The war of which I speak is then the conflict between a repressive, restrictive system based in fear and an open, tolerant one based in love and respect for life. It can also be defined in terms of patriarchal vs. matriarchal societies or Apolonian vs. Dionysian philosophies. The patriarchal system is driven toward achieving a goal, but what is the goal of our society? We have none. Matriarchal societies and many tribal societies have sought a balance with the environment; the goal is balance in everyday life. But these societies may not exhibit the goal-driven scientific and technological progress that we have. We have some of both viewpoints in our major religions, but the patriarchal is ascendant. This war is also between what we falsely believe ourselves to be, a relic of our superstitious past, and what we really are. For what we are was certainly made by Nature, and that perhaps by God, so how could that be wrong? It must be that many of our beliefs about ourselves are wrong and therefore we are and have been in perpetual war with ourselves over our true nature. Belief cannot be proven true or factual; that is its terrible fault.

I do not mean to imply that this cultural viewpoint is the cause of all wars. Something deeper in the human psyche does that. But it is a cause for more hot, shooting wars than human nature alone would account for. Belief can create reality even if it is a false one.

Our major religions have almost equal amounts of the good and evil in them. Perhaps they didnt start out that way. But they have been coopted by the cultural beliefs that preceeded them and that they were meant to correct. Thus they have been cause for much persecution and suffering of innocent peoples. This is not a reason to throw out any of them, but to reform them. That is what fundamentalism should mean.

We believe in unlimited growth; our economies are based on that almost sacred assumption. We do not want to control population, even to discuss the possibility of it makes us uncomfortable. But unlimited growth and overpopulation is the greatest problem we face right now. It can be defined as a cancer fed by religion. We are already competing with every other human on the planet for ever scarcer resources. And those in the Third World want the same material affluence we have, which will further strain those resources. Our waste is already becoming greater than the environments power to handle it. Thus the quality of life is degrading. Too, old diseases are again raising their newly mutated heads and new ones are arising. We may not be able to cope much longer.

Other civilizations in the past have fallen due to a new disease or climate change, but most often because of human ignorance and greed causing wants and needs to outstrip the environments ability to support them. But with our interlinked, world-wide civilization there is no escape.

It is not Mother Earth that we harm in the end when we clear-cut the forests and pave over the land. She has suffered many greater injuries than those we do to her. The planet and life will survive. But it is the human environment we are polluting and our ability to survive that we threaten. We need to look closer to home, to a more personal level than Mother Earth, to human space in our campaigns to reduce pollution and overpopulation. We need a religion that resacralizes the Earth and cleans the negative baggage of past pollution from our minds.

When the human environment collapses, as it must when the population reaches a critical mass sometime during the next 50 years, a domino effect will first cause social collapse. We dont have the medical and technical or natural resources to deal with mass hunger, riots, plagues, disposal of the dead. Were heading at full speed toward a barrier that will smash us, all driven primarily by Christianity, Judaism and Islam. This may well be the Apocalypse.

Can we change our society in time? Do we have to live the consumerist life, have high technology, endless material and economic progress? Does our society have any meaning and purpose? Where is it going? Shouldn't the quality of individual human lives be more important than the quantity? Other than the human misery that may ensue, does it ultimately matter if our civilization collapses? These are the essential questions we should be asking ourselves.